


Honourable Mentions

by manic_intent



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, That medieval AU where Santino has to be John's squire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 18:48:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18970942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “Be grateful that it’s only for a year,” Gianna said as they rode.“Very grateful.” Santino didn’t bother to hide his contempt. “Why the fuck does he live in the middle of a fucking haunted forest? What does he think he is, a chicken-legged cottage witch?”





	Honourable Mentions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leftofrevolution](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftofrevolution/gifts).



> Prompt 3/4 for leftofrevolution: Santino/John: no king received respect without a knighthood, and all knights were squires first. It figured the realm's greatest knight was a shit teacher.
> 
> When I first saw this prompt, I loled in the office hahaha. I’m too lazy to research medieval Italy and all that so this will be a made up universe. I toyed around with making the language more formal, like Game of Thrones, but in the end it was too weird.

“Be grateful that it’s only for a year,” Gianna said as they rode. 

“Very grateful.” Santino didn’t bother to hide his contempt. “Why the fuck does he live in the middle of a fucking haunted forest? What does he think he is, a chicken-legged cottage witch?” 

“Don’t be so superstitious,” Gianna said, even as something—a weasel?—scurried across the unkempt dirt path that their horses were following and startled Gianna’s destrier into snorting and dancing. Gianna swore like a fishwife as she fought her horse back under control. Around them, dense trees had crowned the weed-grown path with dappled shadows that deepened past the tree line into an opaque twilight even in the middle of the afternoon. The air smelled thickly of leaf rot. 

“ _You_ got to squire with Victoria,” Santino said sourly. The Knight-Ascendant of Eagle’s Peak held sway over a salon known for its refinement and culture, in a mountainous city with spectacular views. 

“It wasn’t as fun as you think.” Gianna had returned from her year’s squiring with her temper and wit sharpened to a fine point, though her horsemanship and bladework hadn’t improved noticeably. 

“I’m sure you cried every night into your glasses of Bateleur red and slept badly on all that fine linen.” Santino had visited Gianna a couple of times during her squireship and hadn’t noticed his sister being particularly devastated by the experience. 

Gianna sniffed loudly. “I see you’re not in a mood to be remotely civil. I _did_ try to lobby Father to have you squired to Victoria as well. He said no.” 

“Father’s growing worse,” Santino said. He dared only say this when he was alone with his sister and her personal guard, in the middle of a quiet forest. Their father had too many ears within the Mount, and he didn’t bother to rein in his cruelty where family was concerned. 

Gianna clucked her tongue. “It’s the consumption. Despite the doctors and their brews, it’s worsening slowly. Doesn’t help that our uncle withdrew from his duties after Sofia died from her blood disease. Father’s judgment is… suffering in his absence.” 

“The empire isn’t meant to have just one ruler,” Santino said, though matters of state had once been merely theoretical to him as a second child of the second king. “Pity about Sofia.” 

Crown Princess Gianna and Crown Princess Sofia had been meant to ascend together to the Ivory Seat when their parent-kings were no longer hale enough to rule. After Sofia’s unexpected death, a squireship for Santino had been hastily arranged. Having a knighthood was one of the more inconvenient requirements that tradition dictated for anyone who aspired to rule from the Seat, and anyone who wanted to be knight had to first be a squire. 

Gianna shot Santino a sidelong stare that was all too knowing. “Don’t pretend to be devastated that she died. Your Grace.” 

“I’m not. Though it was a terrible way to go.” Sofia had hung on for longer than the physics had expected, and all for nothing. Her suffering had slowly crushed their uncle inward until her death had crumpled him into a pale shadow of himself, haunting the royal apartments in his grief. 

“It was,” Gianna said. They rode the rest of the way in silence, the forest around them as grim as their thoughts. 

Santino hadn’t been expecting anything grandiose, given the rumours. The modest villa remained a shock. There was no compound, no garden. The road was swallowed by the grass and weeds. The grey house was built of stone, boxy and squat, more of a tomb than a house. It was devoid of any flags. The windows were shuttered tight, the door closed. 

Gianna pursed her lips and looked behind her at Cassian, her assigned royal guard. “Aren’t you a friend of his? Is this really the right place?” 

“Yes, your Grace.” Cassian glanced from the house to Gianna. 

“Did no one tell him we were coming? He doesn’t look like he’s in,” Santino said. 

Cassian pulled a face. “Supplies were sent on a day ahead, so he knows. This is normal. For John. He’s not a man given to many luxuries.”

“That’s a fucking understatement,” Santino said, blinking slowly. “Is there even a latrine? Or does he just manage in the forest? This is ridiculous.” 

Gianna glared at him. “Gods’ sake, brother. Remember yourself. One year. You survive for a year. Our father is ill. Once you’re knighted, we will rule likely sooner than you think.” 

“If I survive.” 

“You will.” Gianna reached out and clasped Santino’s wrist, lowering her voice. “Sir John has become increasingly wilful.” 

“He’s sworn to serve the realm,” Santino said. 

“If you believe that’s the beginning and the end of anyone then you’re more naive than I think. He’s been obedient to his orders, but he follows them very narrowly. Nothing more. Father sending you here wasn’t an accident.” 

“He’s been offered a lordship and lands at least three times, declining each time. Maybe Father just doesn’t have a good read on what Sir John wants out of life.”

“So find out.” Gianna leaned in her saddle, curling an arm around Santino’s riding coat and pulling him close. Santino tensed, but didn’t jerk free as he usually would. They had never been particularly close, given the many years between them. After their mother had passed, Gianna had tried to mother her little brother in turn. She hadn’t cared that Santino was by then old enough to resent her for it—more, he had resented her for the crown she would eventually wear. 

Now that Sofia was dead… “All right,” Santino said. He patted Gianna on the arm, then pulled away and nudged his white destrier forward. Chance tossed his mane and snorted loudly as he trotted the rest of the way up to the silent house. By the time Santino dismounted close to the door, Gianna and Cassian were wheeling their horses around, cantering out of sight. 

Santino studied the door uncertainly. No door knocker. While he was wondering whether to pound on the door or circle around to a window to see if John was even in, the door eased open. A tall man stood in the doorway, pale and austere. He was dressed in a homespun white shirt and simple breeches tucked into soft boots. His lanky black hair brushed broad shoulders, framing a long face that would be handsome if it wasn’t so devoid of any expression.

“You’re the prince,” John said. He had a hoarse voice, as though he wasn’t used to speaking. 

Self-discipline saved Santino from gawking. “I greet you, Sir John of—”

“Just ‘John’.” John’s eyes flicked quickly over Santino, as though assessing his worth and finding it wanting. 

“‘Your Grace’,” Santino prompted sharply. John stared at him instead of taking the hint for what it was. He stepped out of the house, and Santino nearly took a step back. 

“I’ll take your horse,” John said. 

“I’m meant to be your squire,” Santino reminded him, as much as it galled him to. “For a year.”

John scratched at his jaw and looked over his shoulder into the gloom. “Never had a squire before. Didn’t squire for anyone either. Don’t know what to do with you, to be honest.” 

It was going to be a long year.

#

“Suppose I’ll teach you how to fight,” John said on the third day.

“That’s customary.” Santino’s patience had been wearing thin. 

There wasn’t actually very much to do, something which Santino was both thankful for and annoyed by. John mucked out the stables himself, even Chance’s stall. There was only one other horse, John’s unnamed black destrier. John kept the house tidy. Surprisingly, there was a latrine, dug further away from the villa and cleared once a week by a nightsoil cart that John paid to make the journey. If John didn’t have a dense library of books on the premises—surprising for a knight of his reputation—Santino would have been climbing the walls by now. 

John seemed oblivious to sarcasm. He motioned Santino to follow him out to the front of the house, picking up a pair of blunt practice swords off the rack on the wall as he went. Santino eyed them with curiosity as John passed him one. “You’ve taught people before?” Father would’ve said. 

“They try now and then.” 

“Who?”

“The King. Other lords. Send me people now and then to teach.” John stepped back, his blade held loose and low. 

“And?” 

“Usually they quit.” John beckoned. “Try and hit me.” 

“That’s your idea of teaching?” Santino had bladework lessons growing up, just like Gianna. As with Gianna, he’d been relieved to be quit of them once he had grown old enough to study statesmanship. 

“Don’t know how good you are.” John beckoned again. Gritting his teeth, Santino tried to remember his lessons. They slipped from his mind as he drew close, trying to mimic John’s loose posture. He aimed a jab at John’s throat and John spun deftly away, smacking the flat of his blade against the small of Santino’s back. 

Santino glared at him. “Motherfucker. That _hurt_.”

John was unimpressed. “Again.” 

Two hours into the ‘session’ and Santino was balancing on his sword, panting and sweating into his shirt. John wasn’t even out of breath. More annoyingly, Santino hadn’t even landed a single hit. Humiliated, Santino bared his teeth. “Having fun?” 

“No.” John started to turn around, making as if to retreat back into the house. 

Incredulous, Santino said, “That’s it?” 

John paused. He looked at Santino over his shoulder. “Yeah.” 

Santino managed not to smack his palm against his face. “You said you’d teach me. So. _Teach_.” 

“You’re already good,” John said. At Santino’s blink of surprise, he clarified, “‘Bout as good as the average soldier. Good enough.” 

“I don’t want to be ‘good enough’, Santino growled. “My father chose you for my squireship. Teach me to be better. Aren’t you the greatest knight in the realm?” 

“No.” 

Santino let out an incredulous snort. “Come on. What you did at the Battle of Wyvernford alone—”

“I’m very good at killing people. That’s why they made me a ‘knight’. I don’t protect people. I don’t do any of the rest. I’m a knight only because your father said I’m a knight.” John stared at Santino wearily. “I’m the greatest killer in the realm.” 

Santino laughed. “You think a knight is about chivalry and protecting the commonfolk and adventures? Honour and songs? A knight is exactly what you say you are. The great ones are all killers. The more successful the better.” He marched over to John, who turned around. “What is a ruler but the most successful killer of them all? It’s kings and queens who send people like you out to do their bidding.” 

“You like that?” John stood his ground. “Killed anyone before?” 

“No.” Santino stopped a hand’s breadth away, wary of the way John’s hand was clenched tight on the hilt of the practice blade but too angry to care. “Lose any sleep over it, _sir_? Remember their faces?” 

John met his gaze for only a heartbeat before forcing it away. “Some of them.” 

Santino curled his hand on John’s shoulder and leaned up until his mouth was close to John’s ear. “I doubt it. Not with remorse. You sleep far too soundly at night. I’ve seen it. So don’t. _Lecture_. Me.” 

John jerked back so quickly that Santino nearly lost his balance. The weariness was gone, replaced by something unnaturally still and intense, a black beast coiled to strike. The killer. Santino had pushed too far, but even now he was too angry to care. John stared at him, his teeth bared, breathing in tight gasps. “You think I wouldn’t dare to kill you?” John growled. “There’s no one here but us. By the time anyone checks on you, I could be long gone.” 

“You think my father doesn’t want me dead?” Santino said, finally speaking the conclusion he’d reached, the one he’d kept from even his sister. “My uncle wants to retire. My father is ill. The High Council has been waiting to replace them. Preferably with younger, more tractable heirs. My death will buy my father a few more years.” 

“What’s the point?” John asked, though the rage ebbed from his tone. 

“Who wouldn’t kill for a few more years of absolute power?” Power enough to keep expensively searching the realm and beyond for miracle cures that didn’t exist.

“Why should I care? Whoever’s on the throne. It’s all the same to me.” 

“You don’t want a lordship or lands. What do you want out of life?” Santino asked. 

It was the wrong thing to say. John set his hand on the door and pushed. “If you can’t already tell, you won’t get it. Just like your father before you.”

#

Santino thought that John would spend the rest of the year ignoring him, but on the morning the next day, he was motioned out with practice blades to the front of the house. He didn’t learn anything in particular from the bruising two hours in the sun. Not that day, not the next. It figured that John was a terrible teacher. Facing John on the grass was like facing a spectre of a man, dangerous and yet indifferent to Santino’s fate.

“I don’t know why you’re still here,” Santino said after one practice session where he’d been knocked onto the dirt. His back hurt so much it felt like a flat plane of fire. 

John didn’t make a move to help him up. He tilted his head, the only sign that he was listening. Santino waved at the house. “Why don’t you just leave? Go somewhere else? Cross the world, find somewhere else to live? If you hate being a knight.”

“I don’t hate it,” John said, after a long pause. He looked tired now where he wasn’t before, the tip of his blade drifting away from a guard position. “That’s part of the problem.”

#

“You want to be free, is that it?” Santino asked over a dinner of cold cuts, bread, and cheese. John lived a life that was as austere as his villa. If not for the weekly wagonload of supplies that Gianna sent them from the castle, Santino wasn’t entirely sure what they would be eating. Weeds? Tree bark?

John tore into a hunk of bread with his teeth. He didn’t look up, didn’t speak.

#

Taking a bath involved hauling buckets of water over from the nearby stream and heating the old tub in the back of John’s house. He’d blistered his fingers during the first two weeks, but after that, it’d felt like it was getting easier. His strength was working slowly up, maybe.

John hauled his own water, hoed his own garden. Maybe there was a link there. Combining the physical fruits of peasant labour with a nobleman’s instinct for brutality. For someone who wasn’t built to bulk like some of the other knights Santino had met, John could land sledgehammer blows with just his bare hands. He didn’t rely on his strength—he simply combined strength, speed, and endurance into a single unstoppable package. 

It took a while for the water to heat up. Santino heated rocks in the fireplace and dropped them into a corner of the tub. He’d never had to do this for himself before, and the novelty was fleeting. Going to a public bathhouse would have been easier, but the closest decent facility was over half a day’s ride away. Once the water was hot, Santino stripped down and settled gingerly into the tub with a hiss. The new bruises were starting to ache, but the older ones hurt more. He turned his head to look down the curve of his back, mottled with purple and green blotches, and belatedly caught John watching from the tree line, frozen in the middle of leading his destrier back to the stables. Santino raised his eyebrows and John ducked his head, striding quickly out of sight.

Interesting. 

Santino would normally take his time—hot water felt good against his bruises eventually—but he was no longer in the mood for a long soak. As he dressed, he tried to remember if John had ever been rumoured to have lovers. Men? Women? Both? It had never seemed like a particularly salient part of John’s character. The man never attended court, never showed up to tourneys. He was a ghost, absent until there was a war. 

“Have you fucked anyone before?” Santino asked at dinner. 

It didn’t get the reaction he’d been hoping for. “Yeah,” John said. 

“Many? A few?” 

“Some.” 

“No interest in a Lady Wick in the future?” Santino asked facetiously. “My sister and I might be able to help. We have a number of—”

This got him a steady stare. “No.” 

“Men? Others?”

“No.” John fell into a pointed silence, one that didn’t thaw even through the next day’s practice. Santino took the beating in equal silence.

#

“I’m going to kill him,” Gianna said, round-eyed as she studied the bruises on Santino’s back and flank.

“Good luck with that.” Santino pulled his shirt back down. Gianna had forced him to let her look when he’d flinched from a hug. He grabbed her wrist as she scowled and turned toward the house. “It’s fine.” 

“It isn’t fine. He’s going to kill you.”

“If he was, I’d be dead already. It’s been two months.” 

“Is it working?” Gianna looked sceptical. “Are you learning anything?” 

“I’m learning _something_ ,” Santino said, though not in the way that Gianna meant. He didn’t think he was very much better at bladework. Maybe a little better at not getting hit, but John was such an unpredictable fighter that Santino couldn’t really get a read on him. He was just too fast, too good. Didn’t bother with feints, or with any fancy flourishes. 

Gianna pursed her lips. “I’ll petition father.” 

“Don’t. You know how that will look. I won’t run from a little hurt.” It wasn’t in Santino’s nature to run from anything. 

“What can you learn from a brutal recluse?” 

“He isn’t a brutal man,” Santino said. At Gianna’s incredulous look, Santino added, “Not naturally, I think.” 

“Oh, he is. What sort of people kill so easily but brutal men? Maybe he doesn’t revel in it like some of the others, but that makes him brutal anyway. You can’t be this bad at reading people,” Gianna said. 

“What are people like us, then? Like father and uncle? Sending people to die at the border, to wars?” 

“We’re brutal people too,” Gianna said, with a sharp curl to her mouth. “You won’t need to learn that from anyone. It’s in our blood. It’ll come to you, just like the crown. It’s how you counter the corruptive influence of power. By being ruthless about everything—including to yourself.” 

“I don’t intend to destroy the kingdom. Or be any part of that.”

“Even a good king must be ruthless. You’ll see.” 

“I didn’t say we wouldn’t be,” Santino said. He knew himself and his sister too well. 

“Then there’s nothing for you to learn from John. I’ll dig Uncle out of the royal apartments.” 

“Don’t bother. I can live here for ten more months and thrive. If only out of spite.” 

Gianna laughed. This time, Santino didn’t flinch from her hug. When she rode off out of sight with Cassian and the delivery wagon behind her, Santino started to carry the crates to the back of the house. He was stacking things in the pantry when John appeared by his shoulder. 

“Your sister’s right,” John said. He made no move to help. “You can’t learn anything from me.” 

“Can’t I?” Santino hung up the hams and got to his feet, folding his arms. 

“You haven’t gotten much better at anything.”

Santino bit down on the first retort on his tongue, the warm flush of anger. He smiled instead, though he was unable to swallow malice. “Whose fault is that?” 

“Probably better if you just spent the year doing your own thing,” John said, after a pause. “Your father doesn’t have to know.” 

“Fuck off,” Santino said, though he was tempted. Spite was a dangerous thing. “You’re stuck with me.” 

“Last chance,” John said. He waited. Santino stared, his temper eased by puzzlement. “Cassian had orders for me. From your king. Problem down south with bandits.” 

“And?” 

“Going to take care of it.” Another pause. John said, “You’re coming with me.” 

“Just the two of us?” 

John nodded. “I can handle it myself. Done it before.”

“Why do you need me then?”

“I don’t. But if you want to squire for me? You watch.”

#

Chance whickered as Santino washed the blood from his flanks and brushed him down. Doing the same for John’s destrier was a little harder—blood didn’t show up as well against its jet flanks. Afterwards, blinking slowly, Santino walked out to the stream.

John was sitting on the bank, his feet in the cold water. He was staring at nothing, stripped down to his breeches, his bloodied armour and undershirt stacked to one side. Santino didn’t bother hauling water to the bath. He washed down in the chill, teeth chattering. Hanging up his shirt to dry on a branch, he wordlessly wiped down their armour. The undershirt was—

“It won’t come off,” John said, as Santino tried washing it in the stream. “The blood.”

Santino looked over. John still wasn’t looking at anything. “There are probably ways,” Santino said. He waited, to see if John was just being philosophical. In the silence, he washed down the shirt as best he could and hung it to dry as well. John had a fresh gash on one arm from an arrow, but other than that he was unscathed. Some bruises, maybe. He’d cut through the bandit camp like Death itself. 

“That camp could’ve been handled by the local lord,” Santino said. It had been entrenched in the mountain pass, savagely raiding merchant caravans, but there wasn’t really a small army of them or anything. Most of them had been hungry people. 

“Lot of the things I do can be. It’s easier to send me.” John glanced at Santino. “You killed your share.”

“Wouldn’t call it a ‘share’.” Santino had cut down a couple of archers, sneaking up on them when they’d been occupied with trying to turn John into a pincushion. One of them had been younger than him, barely more than a boy. He’d died soiling himself, a scream on his lips. 

“You all right?” John asked. He didn’t sound particularly interested in Santino’s answer, but he had turned to look at Santino. 

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

John looked searchingly into his eyes. He huffed and turned away to stare at the stream. “Your sister and you. More of the same.” 

Santino had become better at swallowing his temper around John. He forced a smile. “Long may we reign.” He shifted closer, going up on his knees beside John, nearly touching. John tensed as Santino leaned in, brushing his mouth against John’s ear. “I know what you want. You want to be human.” 

John went very still. Just as Santino was sure that his third guess had been wrong after all, John bent and let out an inarticulate sound, his hands clenched over his lap. It was a hoarse roar of noise, not of rage or grief but something else, like something under pressure briefly giving way. It was torn from John’s throat with unequal violence, ringing away into the woods. 

Santino jerked back in surprise and yelped as John uncoiled all at once. Long fingers dug into his throat, slamming Santino down into the grass as John curled over him, his face contorting. Santino started to laugh, choking it out in coughs and yelps as John started to squeeze. If this was the end, dying with a ring of bruises around his throat and blood on his hands, at least he’d die laughing at death. John hissed. The pressure eased off so quickly that Santino had to blink away the spots over his vision. John tried to get to his feet and hissed as Santino dragged him down, rolling them both in a wrestling move that he’d seen John use before, coming up on top. He kissed John hard on the mouth, felt John freeze up between his thighs. 

“You’re human enough already,” Santino whispered between kisses, each more of a bite than a caress, aimed at keeping John disoriented. “You don’t get to hide. You’re a monster, but more often than not, monsters are also people. The choices you made are yours to bear. A long time ago you realized you were very good at killing people. It’s the choices you make that keep you killing. You don’t get to push that onto anyone else. It’s on you.” 

John twisted his cheek into the grass, his jaw working as he breathed through clenched teeth, his eyes squeezed shut. “You don’t deserve pity,” Santino said against John’s temple. “You’re a man grown, an arbiter of your own fate. Blame me, blame the king, it won’t change.” 

When John still said nothing, Santino kissed the high arch of his cheek. “You could leave. Easily. No one would dare hunt you down, not seriously. I know why you don’t. You’d rather have someplace to be than have nowhere to go.” Santino turned John’s chin gently up to face him. “You think you can’t escape your fate, but it’s only because you’ve caged yourself in a situation of our own making.”

“So what should I do?” John bit out. The beast of violence stared out of his eyes at Santino, still hungry. 

“Give the key to someone.” Santino tickled fingers over John’s throat, pressing his thumbs against the pulse. “Someone who understands why you don’t want to be free.” 

John let out another hoarse snarl. Santino yelped as his back hit the grass, as his face was pressed into the soil with a hand curled over his face. John’s breath stuttered against Santino’s bared throat, dangerously close. As Santino merely chuckled, John bit down hard, his moan shaking through them both.

#

John’s bed was no more than a pallet, but at least it was clean. Sturdier than a bed. Santino hadn’t thought John particularly interested in sex. He’d been mistaken about that. John wasn’t tactile, wasn’t affectionate, but the beast within him ran hot, not cold. It breathed harshly against the back of Santino’s neck as John drove into him, fingers clamped over Santino’s hips to hold him still.

John might have been the one bearing down on them both, but it was Santino who grinned up at him with bloodied teeth, reaching up to dig his nails into John’s shoulders. “Harder,” Santino commanded. John obeyed with a moan, bruising Santino with his thrusts. His rhythm was growing shaky, shakier yet as Santino clenched down and dropped his head, scrabbling for purchase on the sheets. The thick intrusion within him pounded against the core of Santino’s pleasure, drawing him closer and closer. John groaned, though he didn’t beg. Not verbally. He kissed Santino’s shoulders, huffed desperate gasps against his hair. 

“Not yet,” Santino said and grinned as John whined in disappointment. “Finish me off first.” John reached for Santino’s cock and made an inquiring sound as Santino batted him away. “Use your mouth.” 

John drew out with a snarl. He shoved Santino onto his back, raking him with a stare before shifting down to take as much as he could into his mouth, sucking roughly. Santino purred and twisted fingers into John’s lanky hair, thrusting into the tight warmth of John’s throat. John gagged but let him do it, his hands curled over Santino’s ass, kneading the muscle. Breathing hotly. 

“Doing well,” Santino said, in between gasps. “That’s it, John.” The sight of this powerful man yoked so thoroughly within his grasp was always a heady rush, as intimate and as exhilarating as sex. Santino held John against him as his cock jerked over John’s tongue, watching hungrily as John drank him down. He held his softening cock in John’s mouth for a moment longer before letting John go.

John sat back on his haunches, waiting for orders. He growled as Santino rubbed the ball of his foot up over his slick cock but made no move. Santino stroked it like that for a while, catching his breath. Then he smiled wolfishly and spread his thighs. “Again.”

#

“Well done,” Gianna murmured as, freshly knighted, Santino took his place beside her at the foot of the throne.

“Was that ever in doubt?” 

Gianna chuckled. “Made quite the entrance.” She glanced over Santino’s shoulder to John. He ignored her, watching the crowd like Cassian, his blank stare sweeping back and forth. 

“After the year I’ve been through, I deserved that.” The look on their father’s face when Santino had attended court with John a step behind him had been well worth the whole ordeal. 

“I won’t ask you how you managed this,” Gianna said, with an incline of her head toward John.

“Best not to.” 

“I’ve asked the chefs to prepare your favourites. Will John be joining us for dinner?” 

“If I want him to,” Santino said, loud enough for the man on the throne to hear. Their father tensed, even as he motioned for court to come to session. Santino rested his palm on the hilt of his new sword and smiled. They had all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> twitter: @manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> \--  
> Refs:  
> https://www.shorthistory.org/middle-ages/the-duties-of-a-squire-in-the-middle-ages/  
> http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/baths.html  
> https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/knight2.htm


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